Omega: War and the Supernatural Read Online Free Page B

demon turned and pulled a lever. The train stopped. I looked out and saw a barren plain. The fires, death, and suffering all passed.
    “What is this?” I looked out. I saw blood and soldiers fighting in the distance. I watched one be cut down, but then a great angel descended and carried him away.
    “This,” the demon softly laughed, “is Valhalla.”
    “Valhalla? From Viking Legends?” Turner asked.
    “Yes, yes, indeed! Only the bravest and most noble of warriors will go here after death. You have passed the test, have you not? Valhalla is yours to walk.”
    “How do I know this isn't some other test?” Turner asked, picking up his rifle.
    “You would prefer to ride my train for eternity?” The demon laughed. I grew tired of his mockery. “This is no test. You will fight with just purpose during the day and drink in the night. You will all fight in the most glorious eternal army. Now, go!”
    I looked to the men with me and together we mustered our courage, just as we had in the train car before. These are my comrades. We are brothers in arms in eternal war. And as my brothers charge ahead, I stop and look behind me. The train is gone. I wonder still if perhaps this is not some other Hell, yet at the same time, I cannot think of a better reward. Here will be eternal glory and never death. I look at my blade and raised it to the sky. This is my fate. So be it! Glory!
     
     
     
    Omega
     
     
     
    Despair came easily to the bitter man in the cramped prison cell. The tight, moldy walls beckoned his claustrophobia and the putrid floors raped his senses. Before the door even closed, Tim wanted out. The bars slammed; the lock latched. The jailor laughed when Tim panicked. “I don't want to be in here! Let me out!”
    It was not real. Tim was no prisoner. The holding cell was nothing more than an attraction at a Vietnamese war museum; a tribute to the thousands of POWs taken and abused during the war. “I can't- I can't breathe!”
    His teenaged granddaughter, Omega, said, “You belong in there, papa.” She leaned against the wall beside the door; his panic did nothing to alarm her.
    “Please let me out.” He wrapped his fingers around the iron bars and shook. At last, the tour guide complied and unlocked his cell. Tim wanted nothing to do with his cell. He did not deserve it and he could not imagine anyone ever deserving such a horror.
    “Are you alright, papa?” Omega asked stolidly.
    “Yeah, I'm fine, I just- I couldn't do it.”
    “It's alright,” Omega said. “It isn't yet time to accept.”
    “What?”
    “You might have been in that cell, papa. It could have been you and not whatever poor soul they actually put in there.”
    “Just imagine the men who had to stay in there,” Tim said. “You're right, what if it was me?” When the government instituted the draft, he answered the call by fleeing to Canada. Decades later, guilt finally overcame him and Tim at last answered the call to Vietnam. Tim belonged there. It should have been him and not the thousands who actually suffered. No one should endure such cruelties of the human heart. 
    After a sweltering bus ride, Tim and Omega found themselves in the lush Vietnamese jungle. Their tour group visited this spot because a stand-off took place there. Tim imagined it in vivid detail. The Vietcong militia forces holed up in the foliage just before a large, grassy clearing. The United States Marines crossing the brush suddenly found themselves ambushed by fire. The Americans had minimal cover and no support. Their lieutenant was first to die. Cut off the head of the snake....
    Tim bent over and picked up the shiny thing he saw in the grass: a shell casing. The markings identified it as a 5.56 NATO round, an American bullet. Omega whispered, “You fired that shot.”
    “I should have fired this shot. It should have been me out here dying.”
    “If you had died, where would I be?”
    His ruminations resumed. The American soldiers reflexively dove to